


light of heaven.

by outpastthemoat



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, Future Fic, M/M, Trueform Castiel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-05
Updated: 2013-08-05
Packaged: 2017-12-22 12:29:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/913234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/outpastthemoat/pseuds/outpastthemoat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean wakes up, and the first thing he does is the first thing he’s been doing for what feels like an eternity, now.  He looks around for Cas.</p>
            </blockquote>





	light of heaven.

Dean wakes up, and the first thing he does is the first thing he’s been doing for what feels like an eternity, now.  He looks around for Cas.

He doesn’t see Cas at first.  Dean doesn’t know how Cas manages to slide into the dark, even though by all rights he ought to be the brightest thing in the room.  Cas slips out of sight like rain sliding off the roof.

But there he is, drifting silently by the window, an ever-changing nebula of colors.  Dean almost thinks he’s looking out the window at the rain, but of course he isn’t.  Not really.  But that’s all right.

“Hey, handsome,” he says, first thing, and Cas looks embarrassed.  He always did before whenever Dean said something like that, even though it hadn’t meant the same thing back then.  

 _Dean_ , he’d mutter, sighing expansively and rolling his eyes heavenward.  Now he sort of ducks sheepishly, but looks pleased about the compliment.  Dean thinks it means more, now.  He hadn’t understood that, back then. 

He thinks he understands Cas better, now.  It’s easier to catch on to his jokes, for one thing.  Cas still thinks it’s funny to pop out at Dean from nowhere.  Cas thinks it’s funny when Dean’s dripping wet from a blast of water from the sink faucet and howling about it at the top of his lungs.  Cas thinks it’s funny to wake him up with the enticing smell of bacon only to discover that there isn’t any.

Cas laughs at Dean as he’s putting on clothes, wrestling furiously with the button on his jeans.  Or at least, that’s what Dean assumes he’s doing whenever he vibrates like that, like scorching air rising up from a blistering pavement.

“Oh, so you think that’s funny?” he growls, and Cas drifts away, still quivering with that silent laughter.  He thinks Cas might be smiling.  It’s getting easier for him to tell what Cas means.  Before, he might’ve chased Cas off with a pinch.  Now Dean reaches out to touch him, and it stings like a shock of static electricity.  But it means the same thing.

Cas curls around him, trailing behind him like the tail of a comet as he walks down the hall to the kitchen.  Cas does that in the mornings, wrapping around Dean’s chest and sliding under his arms.  He’s the spot of warmth resting there on the back of Dean’s neck, curling around sleepily to whisper in his ear.  He’d been like that before in the mornings, sleepy and warm, with arms wrapped around Dean’s waist as he stood in from of the range cooking pancakes.

“Breakfast,” he says to Cas, who lets go of him and drifts away.  He turns on the range and hears Cas somewhere behind him, making the silverware vibrate quietly in its drawer. It doesn’t matter if Cas rarely talks back anymore.  It’s enough that Dean can speak to him, and know he’s listening.  “Are you ready for this, man?”

He picks a pan out of the cabinet and sets it down on the gas burner, and feels Cas slide over to hover by his elbow, sort of interested in the proceedings.  That’s one thing that hasn’t changed.  Cas still pays him the same sort of attention he always has.  It’s a blessing.  

He’d said,  _Stay with me_ , and Cas, weary-eyed and fading fast, grace leaking out his chest, had only said, _I’ll do what I can_.  

He takes out the eggs and cracks them on the edge of the Formica countertop.  He whisks them up and pours them in the frying pan, stirring until he hears sizzling.  And he talks to Cas.

“Got a case,” he says, and Cas seems to perk up.  “Sam found it last night.  Gonna meet him in Illinois.  It’ll be great. Just like old times.”

He reads the newspaper aloud to Cas, who offers a silent commentary on his horoscope and the weather.  He makes coffee, even though he doesn’t drink it.  It’s only for Cas, and it’s only been for Cas for years now.  Cas doesn’t drink it anymore, but Dean thinks he appreciates the gesture all the same.  

He sits the mug in front of the chair on the other side of table, and Cas settles down opposite him.  Before, if Dean reached out across the kitchen table, he could touch Cas’s hand and feel Cas grip his fingers so tightly that it hurt.  Cas does that.  He always holds on to Dean that way, so hard that it’s almost painful.  But Dean never did ask him to stop.  He reaches out, now, and Cas brushes against lightly against his hand.  It doesn’t hurt.  It’s not the same.  But Dean’ll take it anyway.  He’ll hold on to any part of Cas he can keep.

Cas pretends to drink the coffee, slyly curling a tendril of light around the handle of the cup, and lets Dean explain to him what’s so funny about  _Peanuts._

“I’m gonna see you today,” Dean tells him, and Cas goes soft around his edges.  “Before I meet Sam.  I’ll be there.”  

Dean knows that it won’t be Cas.  The body was never really Cas, so he doesn’t know why he still thinks of him that way.  But he explained it to Cas like this, once.  Those soft, warm hands were all he’d ever known of Cas’s touch for such a long time.  Running his fingers through that dark hair was the only way he’d been able to touch him.  Looking into those blue eyes had been the only way to catch a glimpse into what Cas might really look like.

He sees more of Cas nowadays. “But,” he says softly to Cas, “I just miss seeing you that way, too.”

Cas says he doesn’t mind.  

But this is good too.  It’s not enough, but he’s never known what having enough of Cas might feel like in the first place.  

Cas is happy like this.  That means Dean can be happy like this, too.  It’s a compromise of sorts.  Cas doesn’t have to be human.  Cas doesn’t have to be an angel.  He can just be himself, blowing hot and furious when Dean’s ignoring him in favor of talking to Sam on the phone or glowing golden and open and almost bashful when Dean sings his praises at night, saying,  _you’re beautiful, you’re wonderful, you are glorious._

They still cling to each other in the darkness.  He still wakes up with Cas warm and contented at his side. And Cas still wraps himself around Dean, curling up against his side like a nebulous cat, and whenever he does, Dean still feels loved.  He figures that’s the most incredible part, that this Cas-that-is still loves him, all the way down to his core, loves him enough to stick around. That this love hadn’t died along with his human body, that it hasn’t passed into dust along with Cas-that-was.

Before, Cas had been lighting in a bottle.  Now he’s just lightning.

He still shatters light bulbs when he’s angry.  He’s still a dork.  He still steals the remote and keeps the television firmly stationed on cartoons and changes the channel whenever Dean wants to watch  _Dr. Sexy, MD_.  He still leans into Dean’s kisses, even though sometimes they pass right through him.  He still flicks water at Dean accidentally-on-purpose while Dean’s washing the dishes.  And he’ll still dance along with Dean to his old records, dancing up and down the halls, sliding in and out of his arms like a cloud across the sky and following the light of the sun as it drifts down the walls.


End file.
